This study examines the role of culture, investigating to how China policy-research experts socially construct ‘American-ness’ through ‘China’ as the Other. I posit the following overarching research question: “How and why are social and cultural boundaries of ‘American-ness’ dialectically drawn by China policy-research experts within U.S. think tanks through their social construction of narratives on ‘China’ as the Other?” The empirical foundation is comprised of 40 face-to-face, in-depth interviews with China policy-research experts across 26 internationally leading think tanks in Washington, DC, and New York, USA, as well as four interviews with relevant experts (i.e. State Department and academia). Additional methods encompass participant observation, contextuality, triangulation, informal conversation, descriptive statistics/database, and collection of written material. The multimethod, ethnographic research strategy is coupled with a social constructionist epistemologically driven study, and deploys Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice and the embedded conceptual “thinking tools” as the theoretical framework (including cross-tabulation and ethnographic/interpretivist contents analysis). The engagement with Bourdieu is also dialectic in its own right, herein allowing obtained field-data and ‘native categories’ of the research subjects to unveil new lines of inquiries as well as to expand and nuance Bourdieu’s conceptual “thinking tools” themselves in a “bottom-up” fashion. This study contributes to the Bourdieusian sociological ‘turn’ in International Relations (IR) research (in particularly, making the non-state, individual level the focal point of the inquiry, in addition to contesting the assumptions concerning immateriality/construction innately preceding materiality/physicality – within the IR constructivism research programme), and to the specific think tank literature by propagating a third ‘school of analysis’, i.e. conceptualising the thinking of policy-researchers. More broadly, this study provides an important perspective on a key bilateral relationship (U.S.–Sino relations) in U.S. Foreign Policy (and for the world) as well as a prominent category of key players in U.S. Politics.

In June 2012 the European Union signed bilateral Association Agreements (AAs) based on a neoliberal economic growth philosophy with Central American states as well as! with Colombia and! Peru. In addition to free trade, these also include a ppolitical dialogue as well as an international cooperation pillar. This thesis explores empirical disconnects and contradiction in the EU’s efforts to combine these different aspects in it foreign policy. In particular, it investigates how successful the EU is in linking these AAs to it work towards sustainable development and gender equality at multiple levels. It does this by moving from a wide and international perspective to a local and more specific one. In doing this the thesis examines international trends, while concentrating on EU development policies in relation to trade with Latin America, using Guatemala as a case study. Most critiques against the AAs take place within a modernity framework but this research moves beyond these notions and considers how we may account for ‘the local’ and critically engage with Western mainstream development discourses. This thesis argues that there, in addition to the empirical disconnects in EU policy, is a disconnect within theory between gendered international political economy (GIPE) and theories on sustainability. Therefore the theoretical framework aim at bridging this gap by linking environmental feminist thought with feminist economics. In addition, this thesis includes Mayan cosmovision (worldview) and the concept of buen vivir (good life), which is inspired by indigenous people’s worldviews and is present in the Bolivian as well as the Ecuadorian constitutions. This way local forms of theoretical knowledge is taken into account and combined with complementing forms of feminisms, allowing for a critical analysis of trade, gender and sustainable development in Latin America.

This thesis examines the Anglo-American Relationship around international drug control and addresses two main questions: first, was there a ‘special relationship’ in the field of drug control? Second, what impact did their relationship have on international control efforts? It highlights that the relationship was far from ‘special’ and was frequently strained. Further, it argues that the outcomes of international drug control efforts, between the collapse of the League of Nations system during World War II and the coming into force of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1964, derived from a triangulation of three international drug control blocs: control advocate states, led by the US; producing states and their noninterventionist allies, led by Turkey and the Soviet Union; and moderate manufacturing and consuming countries, led by the UK. In this triangulation process the UK and US remained the lead international actors and represented the two core policy strands within the system: regulation and prohibition respectively. The Anglo-American drug relationship saw overlap and division in policy interests, resulting in both cooperation and competition. They overlapped around pursuing a global regulatory system managing the flows of ‘dangerous drugs’ internationally. They diverged around the peripheral or frontier aspects of this system: namely, where to draw the line between licit and illicit consumption; how tightly to restrict, regulate and prohibit global production; how much national oversight and interference to provide international organisations; and how to deal with existing drug consuming populations. Where their policy interests overlapped, and when the UK and US consciously worked together, international political progress was possible. Where the two diverged, around strict adherence to prohibitionist principles; overly restricting the manufacturing sector’s ability to procure raw materials; and assuming national obligations for a repressive ‘closed institutional’ model of dealing with ‘addiction’, political momentum generally stalled. Finally, this thesis argues that the 1961 Single Convention evolved via Anglo-American ‘competitive cooperation’ and was ultimately a joint Anglo-American creation: a regulatory system with prohibitionist aspects. However, the 1961 Single Convention ultimately represented a victory for the regulatory strand and the UK over the US-led prohibitionist strand.

This thesis is a study on the use of military force in United States peacemaking in Lebanon between 1982 and 1984. It argues that the failure of the Reagan Administration to understand accurately the complex political landscape of the Lebanese Civil War resulted in the US and the Multinational Force in Beirut becoming intertwined in the broader Lebanese conflict. Because of this, President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz applied a policy focusing on military force with a vague peacekeeping vision which led to catastrophic US casualties. This thesis also argues that US policy in Lebanon was inaccurately designed because, from the outset, Washington did not see Lebanon as a key policy frontline. However, the Administration’s failed attempts to resolve the crisis and Reagan’s personal pursuit for international credibility bound the US to one of the world’s most complicated and violent conflicts. By examining newly released archival material this thesis will show how the foundations of the US’ interventionist policy in Lebanon came from the Reagan Administration’s desire to see the US as the key military power in the Middle East rather than protecting Lebanese sovereignty or containing the Soviets. This thesis offers a fresh perspective on the impact of the US intervention and the decisionmaking drivers that led Reagan into the Lebanese Civil War. It challenges the notion that Reagan deployed US Marines under the ideals of international peacekeeping. Rather it will argue that the Multinational Force withdrew from Lebanon as a failed military force having made little progress.

Since the end of the Cold War private military companies––conflict entrepreneurs that kill or train others to kill, typically in foreign lands––have proliferated at an alarming rate. Curiously, the primary consumer of this new service are not weak states looking to consolidate their monopoly of force (although this has happened) but strong states like the United States of America, which possesses the greatest monopoly of force in the world. This thesis examines how and why this has occurred. The reappearance of private military actors is also a harbinger of a wider trend in international relations: the emergence of neomedievalism. The erosion of the taboo against mercenarism signals a return to the preWestphalian norm of the Middle Ages, when states did not enjoy the monopoly of force and subsequent special authority in world politics. Instead, the medieval system was polycentric in nature with authority diluted and shared among state and non-state actors alike. Because the return to the status quo ante of the Middle Ages is occurring worldwide, it is best described as 'globalised neomedievalism'. Globalised neomedievalism is a non-state-centric and multipolar world order characterized by overlapping authorities and allegiances on a local and global scale. It does not imply worldwide atavism. States will not disappear, but will matter less than they did a century ago. Nor does neomedievalism connote chaos and anarchy; the global system will persist in a durable disorder that contains rather than solves problems. A key challenge of neomedievalism is the commodification of conflict: offering the means of war to anyone who can afford it will change warfare, why we fight and the future of war. The implications of this are enormous since it suggests that international relations in the twenty-first century will have more in common with the twelfth century than the twentieth.

The thesis looks at Robert S. McNamaraʼs support for withdrawal from Vietnam between 1962 and 1964, during the John F. Kennedy administration and during the transition to the Lyndon B. Johnson presidency. It offers a reassessment of McNamaraʼs role as one of the primary architects of the Vietnam War. From a methodological point of view, it approaches McNamaraʼs recommendations on Vietnam from the bureaucratic perspective of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), explaining the evolution of the office and the balance of civil-military relations during his tenure. Through a bureaucratic lens, McNamaraʼs support for a policy aimed at disengagement from Vietnam is logical. First, the withdrawal plans – the Comprehensive Plan for South Vietnam (CPSVN) – supported a strategy informed by the counterinsurgency thinking of the Kennedy administration. McNamaraʼs changes at the OSD were designed to align defense tools to civilian strategy. As a result, as Kennedy and McNamaraʼs counterinsurgency advisers suggested, the CPSVN put the onus on self-help (i.e. the South Vietnamese doing the fighting themselves), clear-and-hold strategies and the strategic hamlet program that was buttressed by paramilitary, rather than traditional military, forces. Secondly, the CPSVN dovetailed with McNamaraʼs economic priorities for the OSD, both mitigating the departmentʼs impact on the nagging balance of payments deficit and, in the nearer term, the impact of South Vietnamese operations on the Military Assistance Program.

This thesis seeks to understand change within China's foreign policy under a 'Going Out' strategy in Sudan and South Sudan between 1993 and 2013. China has traditionally viewed the Sudanese and African context more generally as having a wholly positive impact on its interests. However, in the Sudan case, the insertion of China's leading National Oil Company into the Sudanese political economy from the mid-1990s has meant that Sudan's internal situation has negatively affected China’s interests and, in turn, impacted on its foreign policy. Drawing from 'learning' theory within International Relations' sub-field of Foreign Policy Analysis, this thesis develops a concept of negative experiential 'adaptive learning' to explain change within this case study. It firstly argues that from 2005 China tactically adapted its foreign policy approach in response to challenges that emerged along the trajectory of engagement. Secondly, China's foreign policy implementing institutions collectively learnt the specific lesson that local conflict dynamics in the Sudans could negatively affect Chinese interests, and also learntthe limitations within China’s foreign policy approach. This research finds that throughout the period of change between 2005 and 2011, China's diplomacy remained predominately reactive and defensive. However, since 2012 China began to develop a more assertive foreign policy approach vis-à-vis the long-term resolution of Sudanese conflicts. This has been underpinned by the gradual learning of broader lessons regarding China's traditional understanding of the nature of Sudanese conflicts and its peace and security role therein. Overall, this thesis aims to provide an in-depth holistic analysis of the evolution of China's contemporary foreign policy towards Sudan and South Sudan. A specific contribution to the literature has been to develop the concept of 'adaptive learning', which can be utilised across other case studies to broaden our understanding of Chinese foreign policy towards Africa in the 'Going Out' era.

The security-development nexus has received significant attention from policymakers as a new trend in post-conflict reconstruction. Integrating the traditionally separate areas of security and development, the nexus has been touted as a new strategy to achieve a comprehensive approach to post-conflict reconstruction. Despite the enthusiasm behind the security-development nexus, it has received significant criticism. Critics argue that rather than an integrated approach, the nexus results in the securitisation of development, where development is employed to further desired security objectives. These critiques focus on the outcomes of the security-development nexus, with little understanding of what contributes to these outcomes. In my research, I address this gap by focusing on processes and investigating how security and development are integrated. The thesis asks what in practice inhibits the integration of security and development into a nexus. To do this, the thesis hypothesises and investigates four tensions that influence the integration of security and development. Conceptual tension arises from the different understandings of security and development. Causal tension arises from the different applications of security and development and the linkages between them. Institutional tension arises from the way actors and institutions inform the implementation of programmes. Motivational tension arises from the drivers behind international involvement. The research is informed by the Welsh School of Critical Security Studies. From this perspective, the security-development nexus is imbued with the potential of a positive result. This potential is operationalised through a human security approach, defined in terms of people-centredness, holism and emancipation. The tensions track the divergence of the security-development nexus from its potential, and show how the integration of security and development is inhibited. The thesis compares two case studies of internationally driven initiatives to address organised crime in Sierra Leone and Bosnia. Examination of the tensions reveals that actors addressing organised crime have attempted to move away from a security approach, resulting in incipient integration between security and development. In some areas the relationship is mutually constitutive, and sequential in others. However, barriers still remain. Integration is inhibited by the prioritisation of international security concerns and the dominance of security actors. While these factors appear to support the argument on securitisation of development, the continued prominence of security is not an explicit strategy that co-opts development, rather the process of integration is shaped by the tacit knowledge of security actors.

This dissertation shows that and explains why two European Union (EU) Member States, namely France and the United Kingdom (UK), differ in the degree of internalisation of political conditionality. The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part assesses the degree of internalisation of political conditionality. Following a three-fold measurement framework, the thesis examines French and British policies, legal documents and behaviour. The analysis of behaviour concentrates on four cases of EU aid sanctions: Madagascar 2009, Mozambique 2009, Nicaragua 2008 and Zimbabwe 2002. France and the UK differ significantly. France has not officially endorsed political conditionality, generally does not insert human rights clauses in its developing agreements, and is recurrently among the donors which take a soft stance in response to recipient governments’ abuses. The UK has adopted a fully-fledged policy requiring partner governments to respect human rights and basic democratic principles, has consistently included human rights clauses in its development agreements and often belongs to the group of hardliners in favour of the application of aid sanctions. The second part of the dissertation explains these differences. Given the complexities of aid decision-making, the thesis adopts an “analytic eclectic” approach and tests four alternative hypotheses derived from realism, international constructivism, liberalism and sociological institutionalism. The examination of the cases studies and more than 100 interviews with diplomats, aid officials and representatives from nongovernmental organisations show that the higher accountability of aid decisionmakers and social pressure by like-minded donors (in particular Nordic countries) have played the most significant role in generating deeper internalisation of political conditionality by the UK. While organisational cultures cannot explain the extent of internalisation of political conditionality, their differences are helpful to understand the characteristics of the cases when political conditionality is applied more reluctantly. Evidence is not sufficient to confirm the hypotheses based on material interests, Commonwealth influence and aid modalities.

Prior to the EU’s Eastern enlargement in 2004 there was much academic speculation about its repercussions for EU foreign policy. Although scholars agreed that the eight newcomers from Central and Eastern Europe would have an impact on the EU’s foreign policy, it remained unclear how and to what extent they would do so. This thesis identifies and evaluates the impact of the CEECs on the substance of EU foreign policy in three areas including development cooperation, neighbourhood policy and energy security. It analyses why the CEECs have sometimes succeeded in having an impact and at other times not. It differentiates between three categories of the CEECs' impact (defensive, divisive and innovative) as well as three aspects of policy substance (regional coverage, policy objectives and principles and policy instruments). The CEECs' impact varies along the three areas and the different stages of the policymaking process. In long-standing traditional areas such as development cooperation, it has been largely defensive and limited to soft law instruments while in regional or emerging areas such as neighbourhood policy and energy security the CEECs’ impact has been higher as well as innovative and/or divisive. To analyse why the CEECs' impact varies from case to case, the thesis draws on insights from the literature on EU (foreign) policy-making and on small states in EU foreign policy. Three sources of impact (material, institutional and ideational) are systematically applied to selected in-depth case studies in each of the three EU foreign policy areas. The thesis concludes that ideational and/or institutional factors are crucial for member states’ impact at the agenda setting stage whereas at the decision-making stage material sources of impact prevail. In order to have impact at the decision-making stage the CEECs need the support of at least two large 'old' EU member states.